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A CMU press release (PDF format) describes a recent field test of CMU's modular snake robot in which it navigates inside an Austrian nuclear power plant. The robot moved through pipes, open valves, and inside various types of vessels. The Zwentendorf nuclear power plant was built in the 1970s but never made operational and lacks any radioactive material, making it ideal for testing and training purposes. As this was the first field deployment test, the robots was limited to a maximum range of 60 feet but will make longer excursions on future tests. From the press release:

"Our robot can go places people can’t, particularly in areas of power plants that are radioactively contaminated,” Choset said. “It can go up and around multiple bends, something you can’t do with a conventional borescope, a flexible tube that can only be pushed through a pipe like a wet noodle"

The robot is 37 inches long, made up of 16 modules that have two half-joints each, giving the robot a total of 16 degrees of freedom. It can emulate the gaits of a natural snakes but can also configure itself in unique ways not possible for a biological snake. The snake bot relies on SLAM to assist it with navigation and carries a video camera and other sensors that allow it provide gravity-compensated video that's always right-side-up. You can see more photos on the press release media page. A more detailed report (PDF format) of the field test is also available. Read on for video of the snake bot in action.

Amoebas (or Amebas as the kids today call them) are interesting little animals that have inspired lots of thought among roboticists on how life interacts with an environment. Now they've inspired a team of researchers to develop a new self-organizing particle system. Researchers Shlomi Dolev from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Robert Gmyr and Christian Scheideler from the University of Paderborn, Germany; and Andréa W. Richa from Arizona State University describe their idea in a new paper, "Ameba-inspired Self-organizing Particle Systems" (PDF format). From the abstract:

Self-organizing particle systems have many interesting applications like coating objects for monitoring and repair purposes and the formation of nano-scale devices for surgery and molecular-scale electronic structures. While there has been quite a lot of systems work in this area, especially in the context of modular self-reconﬁgurable robotic systems, only very little theoretical work has been done in this area so far. We attempt to bridge this gap by proposing a model inspired by the behavior of ameba that allows rigorous algorithmic research on self-organizing particle systems.

The authors describe some speculative ideas of cellular-sized robots that could be mixed with paint and used to cover man-made structures like buildings, acting as sensors to measure traffic, wind load, or structural integrity. Even more advanced uses might include biological robots that act as sensor and actuator, reconfiguring themselves as needed to form biological delivery devices or chemical factories. Also, I just really like the hexagonal grid they used as an improvement over more traditional square grid spaces.

In Robots Podcast #134, interviewer Priscila Soares speaks with Martin Adams, principal investigator at the industry funded Advanced Mining Technology Centre (AMTC) and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Chile, about the development of robotic technologies for use in mining, and what motivates the mining industry to fund this research. He lists his research interests as robot navigation, SLAM, sensing, field robotics, and millimeter wave radar.

This edition of best robot photos of the week includes some shots of the Robot Dance Party bot at the San Francisco Pride Parade. There are also pics of a variety of student-built robots ranging from RoboCup bots to ROVs. There's robot graffiti from Reykjavik and the usual assortment of art bots. Every week we post a collection of the best robot photos submitted by our readers to our robots.net flickr group. Why? Because everyone likes to see cool new robots! Want to see your robot here? Post it to flickr and add it to the robots.net flickr group. It's easy! If you're not already a flickr member, it's free and easy to sign up. Read on to see the best robot photos of the week!

Get ready for endless "Atlas Shrugged" jokes in the media. DARPA has made the first official news release showing video of their new ATLAS humanoid robot. ATLAS was built by Boston Dynamics and evolved from their PETMAN humanoid prototypes which you've probably already seen. ATLAS will be used by seven of the teams in the latest DARPA Challenge. The robot has some impressive specs:

On-board real-time control computer

Hydraulic pump and thermal management

28 hydraulically actuated joints

Carnegie Robotics sensor head with LIDAR and stereo vision

One had built by iRobot and one by Sandia National Labs

It runs GNU/Linux and ROS of course. Read on for a DARPA video that includes an animated overview of the robots features, a series of video clips of the robot's evolution from PETMAN to ATLAS, and finally Atlas showing off his skills. You can also find more details on the DARPA ATLAS overview webpage.

According to a CMU news release, CMU's robot soccer team, the CMDragons, placed second in the RoboCup 2013 finales small-sized league. They were beaten by the ZJUNlict team from China's Zhejiang University. In the news release, Manuela Veloso of CMU had this to say about the team's performance:

"We came in second place, in the closest possible way to first. The team from China even asked us to go up on the stage together with them for the award ceremony. Our CMDragons team was remarkably new, with new low-level skills and tactics, dynamic planning, a great goalie and defense, new robots and the best attacker robot ever."

For more, you can check out all the final scores for the RoboCup mis-sized league. We don't have video of the CMDargon's matches yet but you can check out other matches from RoboCup 2013 on Youtube include humanoid robot matches. You can also see video of prior competitions of the CMDragon team on their website. Congratulations to ZJUNlict for their win and to the CMDragons for their close performance. We're looking forward to next year's match.

Remember that big DARPA Robotics Challenge for humanoid robots that we posted about in October 2012? The first phase, known as the Virtual Robotics Challenge, is now complete. Tim Smith over at the Open Source Robotics Foundation has got a new post up about the results. The quick version is that 26 teams from 8 countries qualified for the VRC and based on the result, DARPA has selected a total of 9 teams to move on to the the next phase which will involve physical robots. From the DARPA press release:

In Robots Podcast #133, Per speaks with Tom Green, editor in chief of the Robotics Business Review, a global robotics news and information resource headquartered near Boston, MA (USA). Green shares his view on how the focus within the robotics community differs around the world, and the roles public and venture funding play in this. According to him, it is not primarily technology but attitudes holding back the development of robotics at the moment, particularly in the United States. He also shares some success stories, providing examples of robotics making a difference in people’s lives.